1. Field of Invention
To solve the traffic, commuting and parking problems in metropolis, motorcar has twin wheels with single arm differential height steering shock-tube and nondivided continuous axle having friction-free non-contact force differential speed engaging drive and single-sided wheels driving capabilities.
2. Description of Prior Art
Today there are two main private transportation facilities: car and motorcycle. However, they are neither the best transportation facility. Between the motorcycle and the automobile, there is a gap for the transportation facilities, i.e., single driver car. As the load and safty requirement increase, there is the need for the motorcar having the stability of automobile and the convenience of the motorcycle. The ways of motorcar operations are the hybrid of the automobile and the motorcycle. The key difference between the motorcycle and automobile is the motorcycle can tilt and use two-wheel to drive. The automobile cannot tilt to raise-up one side two wheels and uses the single side two wheels to drive. Stopping at the signal light, the automobile doesn't need to use the feet to support the vehicle during the vehicle.
Motorcar is the best transporation facility having both the advantages of car and motorcycle. It is safe, economic, convenience, saving traffic time, saving money and comfortable. The conventional car has four wheels and coverage. However, the cost is high and it wastes fuel. It causes the traffic congestion in cities. The motorcycle has only two wheels. As the motorcycle stops before the traffic light, the rider needs to use two feet to support the motorcycle to keep balance. It causes the motorcycle to have no coverage. In the chilly or rainy weather, it is very uncomfortable to ride the motorcycle. It is very dangerous in the traffic accident. However, it is very convenient and easy to move during the traffic congestion. The parking problem is also less difficult for motorcycle. However, it is impossible to scale down the car size to the size of motorcycle. Duing to the transmission and differential boxes of conventional cars, the car width is hard to be reduced. It needs the breakthrough in several aspects. Furthermore, the conventional differential mechanism of automobile drives the fast wheel. The four wheel automobile cannot run on the slippery field road and raise up single side wheels to counter balance the eccentric force. It is meanless to build a minicar having motorcycle size but cannot drive everywhere with high speed as the motorcycle does.
The motorcar of my invention has made several breakthroughs to have the advantages of both car and motorcycle. It adopts two front twin-wheels and two rear twin wheels. The rider doesn't need to use feet to support the car. It makes the coverage be implementable. There are two differential mechanisms: the differential height mechanism for the front twin-wheel and the differential speed mechanism for the rear drive twin-wheel. The differential drive mechanism is inside the hub. The car width can be reduced to be the width of twin wheels. During turning directions, the driving twin-wheels may rotate at different speeds. The slow wheel is driven with larger force. So my motorcar can run through the muddy road and drive with single side wheels as the motorcycle does. The differential steering mechanism of the front fork is the single arms changing their length independently. The wheels may adjust the length of single arm during turning direction. The front fork adopts the bending arm structure. It reduces the variance of length of single arms in turning direction with the addition of side-moving capability. The front fork tilts backward slightly that it still keeps the front wheels point forward in the natural position. To have the twin wheel design for the front fork, the front fork adopts the single arm design, i.e., one shock tube for each wheel. It saves the space and cost. The shock tube of the front wheel has the functions of differential height mechanism, steering, raising up one side wheel and cushion. The single arm steering shock tube has the special design that the shock tube only can slide up and down, cannot rotate. No other shock tube has the special function as the single arm steering shock tube does. The novel top cover designs adapts to the operations in the narrow parking space.
My motorcarkeeps the motorcycle driving style and the single sided wheels driving capability. Since the car width is narrow, in the high speed turning, two wheels on the outside of my motorcar may raise up. There is no need of the braking mechanism to lock the outside raising wheels as the automobile does. This driving style is similar to the motocycle.
Due to the wide car width or the need of locking mechanism for their the raised-up wheels, no other three-wheel motocycle or four-wheel motorcycle has the single-side wheels driving capability. The U.S. Pat. No. 2,286,575 issued to Ronning uses the differential mechanism of conventional automobiles for both differential speed mechanism and differential height mechanism. Ronning's patent doesn't have the single-side wheel driving capability. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,070,032 being issued to Cunningham doesn't have the differential mechanism installed in the hub. Furthermore, his driving is one wheel drive, not a differential drive at all. As two wheels drives straight forward with the same speed, the driving force should be the same. Cunningham's one wheel driving mechanism is installed in the transmission box, not in hub. During the straight forward driving, his car uses the left-rear single wheel drive; during the straight backward driving, his car uses the right-rear single wheel drive. It is not a differential drive. Even installing my differential mechanism inside the hubs of Cunningham's patent, it still cannot modify the Cunningham's to be the differential drive. Furthermore, Cunningham's car doesn't have the concept of twin-wheel that his car cannot raise up one side wheels. It cannot operate as the motorcycle does. It cannot run on the slippery muddy road. His front fork doesn't have the differential height mechanism. The U.S. Pat. No. 4,153,266 issued to Uhls is twin arm shock tube. It cannot be used as the single arm steering shock tube. Even the combination of the Uhls' patent and Cunningham's patent, it cannot reduce the width as narrow as the width of twin wheel to have the capability to raise up one side wheels.
The engaging mechanism of my differentail drive mechanism adopts the lateral noncontact magnetic force to grip the engaging drum. There is no breakage of the mechanical component. There is no loss of the momentum and energy due to the friction force. The U.S. Pat. No. 2,246,191 issued to Schmitz used the radial friction force. Schmitz' gripping fingers is easily broken. Schmitz' patent originally designed for the Children's toy. It is not for the high speed motorcar. Furthermore, until now, none thinks of the novel innovation of the differential mechanism with the engaging mechanism. The idea is simple but not an obvious one.
My motorcar adopts two differential mechanism: the differential height mechanism for the front wheel and the differential speed mechanism for the rear driving wheel. The U.S. Pat. No. 2,286,575 issued to Ronning shows a motorcycle equipped with the differential height mechanism. His differential height mechanism adopts the differential mechanism of the convential car. The differential mechanism of convential car is too large to be used on the twin-wheel type motorcar. Even worse, the front wheels have the impulse impact from the road. The conventional differential mechanism cannot respond the impulse impact. The differential function fails and the mechanical parts will be destroyed. My invention is the first to use the shock tube as the differential height mechanism.
There two patents show both differential height mechanism and the differential speed mechanism are worthy of patent. The U.S. Pat. No. 836,035 issued to Hendricks shows a differential speed mechanism for the continuous undivided axle. However, at high speed, it's free-running mode doesn't exist. At high speed, it's operation will switch from the driving mode to the brake mode directly, bypass the free-running mode. My invention adopts different approaches for both differential height mechanism and differential speed mechanism. These differential problems are never recognized by the other people who are familar with the shock tube and the vehicle drive. Recognizing these differential problems and solving these differential problem are worthy of patents.
The differential height mechanism of my invention is the single arm steering shock tube for twin wheels. Two wheels having close alignment is referred as twin wheel. One front wheel has only one shock tube is referred as single arm. The single arm steering shock tube has the multiple functions of differential height, cushion, steering, single side wheels driving capability, saving space and cost.
The cover of my invention can be operated in a very narrow space. It can slide backward, raise sideward with half of the shell. With the same structure, it is easily changed to be the hood. None of the previous inventions has the same capabilities.
It is noted that the rear wheels of Wallis' tricycle doesn't have the differential speed mechanism. The tilt of Wallis' tricycle is to pull the rear wheels to change the direction of rear wheels to reduce the lateral rubbing of rear wheels. To change the direction of rear wheels, the joints of the Wallis' tricycle are universal joints.
The rear wheels of my motorcar have the differential speed mechanism. My motorcar doesn't need to change the direction of rear wheels at all. The tilt of my motorcar is to have soft landing. To have the soft landing, my motorcycle adopts the resilient pivot joints. However, Wallis' frame uses the universal joint that Wallis' tricycle cannot raise up single side wheels. As Wallis' tricycle raises up one side wheels, the frame will be bent that the tricycle falls to ground. My motorcar use the resilient pivot joints and resilient yoke that my motor car can raise up one side wheels. The difficult part is that all the joints must be located on one single line like the spline does. The design purposes and functions of my tilting mechanism is completely different from the design purposes and functions of Wallis' patent. So the tilting mechanism of my motorcar is completely different from the tilting mechanism of Wallis' tricycle.
In summary, free running is very important for fuel economy; twin wheel is very important for space economy. My in-hub differential speed mechanism has both fuel economy and space economy to save traffic time and parking space. The previous patents fails to have free-running at high speed. The mechanical parts of previous patents are easily broken at high speed due to frictions. The previous patents has no single side wheel driving capability at all. The conventional differential mechanism caused the width of car is hard to be reduced and having no single side driving capability. My invention solves the problems of high speed vehicle occupying narrow space. The problems are coverage, narrow space, stability and field drive. The stability problem induces the tilt and raise up one side wheel to have single side driving problem. The field drive needs the steering shock tube and the slippery road driving capability. The narrow space and single side driving exclude the conventional differential mechanism. Previous patents are designed for the low speed toys. At high speed, we must consider the breakage of mechanical parts, friction and cushion. Due to tilt and raise up wheel, we not only consider the longitudinal cushion but also transveral cushion. We need whole system design to meet all the specifications, not pieces of combination of existed prior arts. None of existed prior arts having the complete set of functions. Without the complete set of solution, it is the reason that we still doesn't have the best transportation facility, i.e., motorcar.
My invention is to offer the complete set of functions. My invention adopts the twin wheels, in-hub differential speed mechanism and steering shock tube differential height mechanisms. To tilt and raise up and land wheels smoothly, my invention has combined the tilt, shock tube, resilient yoke and pivot joint to be an integrated design. To have the stability, coverage and operate in narrow parking space, my patent adopted the universal top cover, sliding door, side emergency supporting pad and auxiliary supporting pad. The universal top cover can slide backward, raise-up sideward or exchanged to be hood cover. All the covers are exchangable.